Ex-People Can Fly Developers Unveil The Vanishing Of Ethan Carter

The Astronauts, a new studio headed by Adrian Chmielarz, the former creative director of People Can Fly and the guiding force behind Gears of War: Judgment, Bulletstorm, and Painkiller, has released a teaser trailer for its intriguing new game.

The game is titled The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, which is slated to be released for PC sometime this year. The game takes its inspiration from early 20th century macabre fiction, and the press release says it is meant to be "played at night, alone, and in headphones."

The game emphasizes storytelling, and it sounds like a captivating tale. The player is cast as a detective who has "supernatural" abilities which allow him to mentally recreate crime scenes. You are put on the trail of a boy who has been kidnapped, presumably Ethan Carter, and soon discover the body of one of his captors, which has been mutilated. More corpses soon turn up, and the mystery deepens as you discover the "ancient force" that holds sway over the region.

The game uses Epic's ubiquitous Unreal Engine 3, a technology that the Chmielarz and his colleagues have a great deal of experience with. Chmielarz says, "“What we care about the most is that the players feel like they’re really there. Immersion is our number one priority. It’s a game about exploration and discovery. We’re not abandoning the gameplay – on the contrary: we’re trying to strip it down to the bone and make sure it’s always meaningful and truly makes the experience better.”